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Comcast is adding smart thermostat and energy efficiency software developed by startup EcoFactor to its Xfinity Home platform, a security and home surveillance service unveiled last summer by the cable company.
Under an agreement announced today, Comcast will work with the startup to integrate an EcoFactor-enabled thermostat with Xfinity Home, a 24/7 home security and monitoring service available over cable company's wired network. Xfinity customers also can stay connected and check in on their home via a smartphone app; receive texts or email alerts; and remotely access their system to change settings.
The deal not only gives Comcast's Xfinity customers more energy-related features, it marks EcoFactor first foray into direct consumer services. Until now, EcoFactor has primarily worked with utilities. EcoFactor's cloud-based software platform uses a home's broadband service to connect -- and gather data from -- a communicating thermostat to automatically customize the heating and cooling of homes. It also use real-time weather data to adapt to changing condition; learns the characteristics of the home as well as the patterns and preferences of residents.
In all, EcoFactor's energy management engine collects, stores and processes 24,000 points of data from the home, local weather stations and even regional building codes every day. The end-game is optimized energy use, which means less waste and lower electric bills. EcoFactor estimates its service can help lower energy use and the cost to heat and cool a home between 10 percent and 30 percent. And all without using a smart meter or other expensive hardware.
Comcast also is adding four new features to its Xfinity Home service, including an indoor/outdoor camera with night vision, a carbon monoxide sensor, water/flood sensor for a basement or wash room and some in-wall lighting switches that can be remotely controlled via an app, according to blog post today.
Photo: EcoFactor
- Silver Spring, Hitachi team up to develop new smart grid products
- Itron's $100M smart grid cellular buy
- Tendril launches contest to find killer smart grid app
- $2.75 billion to be spent on smart grid in 2010, report says
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Bipartisan Support on Capitol Hill for Healthier School Foods
Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act Introduced
The school foods reform movement, which has been sweeping through states and local school districts, has reached the nation's capital. Bipartisan legislation aimed at improving the nutritional quality of foods available in schools was introduced today in both houses of Congress. The bill calls on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to update its decades-old nutrition standards for drinks and snack foods sold in cafeterias alongside the regular school meals and to apply those standards everywhere on school grounds, including in vending machines and school stores.
In 1979, USDA defined what it calls "foods of minimal nutritional value," and restricted sale of those foods in the cafeteria during mealtimes. Since then, however, current nutrition science has rendered those standards obsolete, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). And since so much food is sold outside the cafeteria throughout the school day, the bill's sponsors say updated standards should apply to the whole campus.
"When parents send their kids to school with lunch money, they shouldn't have to worry that the money will be spent on foods that promote obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay," said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. "Disco-era nutrition standards don't make sense in 2006. When you have an obesity epidemic, schools shouldn't sell candy at recess, potato chips for lunch, and soda throughout the day."
USDA's current definition of foods of minimal nutritional value focuses on whether a food has at least minimal amounts of one of eight nutrients. However, that definition doesn't address calories, saturated or trans fat, salt, or added sugars. By the current standard, seltzer water—something that CSPI says should be allowed in schools—is disallowed, while candy bars, cookies, and potato chips can be sold anywhere on campus at all hours of the day.
Back in the 1970s, most food sold on school grounds was sold in the cafeteria, and thus subject to USDA's standards. Since then, vending machines have become commonplace. According to a report issued last year by the Government Accountability Office, 83 percent of elementary schools, 97 percent of middle schools, and 99 percent of high schools sell foods out of vending machines and school stores, as well as in a la carte lines in the cafeteria. A 2004 survey by CSPI of 251 schools found that 75 percent of the drinks and 85 percent of the snacks sold in school vending machines were of poor nutritional quality.
"Many kids are at school for two meals a day. But instead of a nutritious school breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria, they are enticed to eat Cheetos and a Snickers Bar from the vending machines in the hallway," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), lead sponsor of the measure. "Junk food sales in schools are out of control. It undercuts our investment in school meal programs, and steers kids toward a future of obesity and diet-related disease. Congress cannot stand idly by while our kids are preyed upon by junk-food marketers."
In addition to Senator Harkin, sponsors of the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act include Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI). House sponsors include Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT).
"Parents throughout the country know all too well the poor nutritional temptations facing our children each day at school," Murkowski said. "At a time when childhood obesity rates continue to climb at an alarming rate, it is imperative that we take decisive action to curb this trend by helping our children develop healthy eating habits today that will impact them throughout their lives. This legislation takes an important step forward by removing the unhealthy foods that are currently being offered in our schools."
"Nutrition for children is fundamental," Specter said. "This would update the definition of food nutritional value and give the Secretary of Agriculture more authority over foods sold in schools. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia schools have taken steps in a similar direction and I think this would be a good national policy."
Supporters of the bill argue that it is largely a myth that improving school foods reduces school revenue. Much of the money spent on junk food in vending machines or a la carte lines would otherwise be spent either on healthier snacks or on the federally reimbursable school meal. Also, schools' soft-drink vending contracts typically raise only about $10 to $20 per student per year. In a survey of 17 schools and school districts conducted by USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 schools and districts increased their revenues after switching to healthier options, and four reported no change.
"Revenue from junk-food sales isn't a philanthropic donation by soda and snack food companies," Wootan said. "The money comes out of children's pockets, and Coke and Pepsi take a cut of that money back to corporate headquarters. Schools, are, in effect, taxing kids to help fund schools."
The legislation is supported by CSPI, the National PTA, the School Nutrition Association, and more than 80 other organizations.
Contact Jeff Cronin (jcronin[at]cspinet.org) or Ariana Stone (astone[at]cspinet.org).


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Finally my lifelong lack of a college degree pays off! As it turns out, college degrees are bad for living things. At least that's according to sterling citizen Cliff Gardner of Ruby Valley in Nevada, who said this to the New York Times:
"I'm sure most of the people being considered for [the state's Department of Wildlife director] job graduated from a college. These people are the cause of the destruction of wildlife."
At issue is the ongoing battle in the state of Nevada to keep sage grouse from being listed as an endangered species, without the state actually doing anything to protect the sage grouse.
Sage grouse are chicken-sized, chicken-shaped birds in the chicken family that inhabit the sagebrush high desert in the American west. Here's a photo:
Sage grouse are in trouble: their habitat is increasingly altered by grazing, by wildfire and consequent invasion by invasive grasses, and by development for both fossil fuel extraction and renewable energy, especially wind. The problem is that sage grouse are about as tied to sagebrush habitat as they can possibly be. It's a major food source for adults, making up about 60 percent of the food eaten by adult males. Females eat sagebrush-affiliated herbs when getting ready to lay eggs, and once those eggs hatch out the young spend their first few weeks eating sagebrush-affiliated beetles and ants, along with local herbaceous plants.
The geometry of sagebrush habitat is important to sage grouse too: sagebrush — Artemisia tridentata and allied species — tends to grow patchy, with some big clumps and some big open areas, along with spots with intermediate cover. Females generally nest under sagebrush. The clumps are good shelter for chicks.
Meanwhile the big open areas provide the mating habitat sage grouse prefer. Sage grouse mate using the lek strategy. In a sage grouse lek, the males gather around a big open area in spring and, like it says in the video, strut their stuff:
Female grouse will choose their mates from among the males. In a typical lek, no more than one or two males usually get a chance to breed. (The rest go off to post bitter screeds to A Voice For Grouse.)
The sage grouse's population has dropped to something like one percent of its size a hundred years ago, and habitat destruction is the reason. In 2010, after considering whether to add the species to the Endangered Species list, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar decided on "warranted but precluded" status, which means "yes, it's legally deserving of protection, but there's only so much we can do." The species now comes up for annual review, and can be added to the Endangered Species list at any point if the Fish and Wildlife Service — part of the Interior Department — concludes the species' plight has worsened or FWS' caseload has lightened.
One of the things that happens if a species makes it to the endangered list is that FWS maps out the species' Critical Habitat. Though anti-wildlife types have done a whole lot of whining about Critical Habitat designations infringing on their freedom to develop their property, those complaints are mainly lies. If a developer wants to bulldoze his or her property, and isn't getting federal funds to do so, that property being designated as Critical Habitat means exactly nothing. There has to be a "federal connection" to the project for the Critical Habitat provisions of the Endangered Species Act to kick in, meaning it's got to be a project either on your public land or subsidized somehow by your tax dollars. And even before it gets to that point, FWS is obligated by law to consider economic impacts while drawing up Critical Habitat maps.
Nonetheless, in a place like Nevada where hardly any economic activity happens without rugged individualist Nevadans asking the Feds for cash first, Critical Habitat designation is a scary thing. Ranchers, miners, wind turbine builders, oil and gas drillers, suburb builders, and solar facility developers might have another small hurdle to jump before they get their economic activity permitted, and nothing makes a Nevadan Free Market Capitalist more nervous than suggesting his government check might be smaller, or later.
So the stated goal of the government of Nevada is to manage sage grouse population to make listing unnecessary. To that end, the Nevada Department of Wildlife's director Kenneth Mayer and his staff came up with a map of nine million acres of sage grouse habitat in Nevada, which maps showed areas of core habitat that the sage grouse absolutely could not afford to lose. The maps also identified places where fewer sage grouse lived, which Mayer et al pointed out might feasibly be developed with far less risk of driving the grouse onto the Endangered list.
So they fired him. Mayer announced last week that Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval had asked for his resignation.
Turns out in Nevada, you're only taken seriously in your efforts to protect wildlife if you do so by killing wildlife. Protecting habitat is for Californians, apparently. Instead, the powers that be in Nevada want their state to protect sage grouse by shooting ravens and coyotes. Ravens are significant predators of sage grouse eggs, and coyotes eat the eggs along with the hatchlings and adults.
I don't know nearly as much about ravens as I do coyotes. My twitter handle isn't @corvuscorax, after all. I do know that coyotes respond to pressure from human hunting by increasing in number, and there's about a century of evidence for that: hunting shatters family groups, which increases the number of breeding adults, which means more pups.
Maybe shooting ravens is more effective than shooting coyotes. It'd be something to have a scientist look into, don't you think? Except that in Nevada, the wildlife management establishment has deprecated science. It wasn't even that Mayer didn't want to kill ravens and coyotes and other predators: it's that he wasn't enthusiastic enough to do so at every single opportunity. From Nate Schwerer's NY Times article:
State budget records show that Mr. Mayer spent $400,000 to kill predators last year and invested more in that effort in several regions of the state than his predecessor did. He oversaw the killing of thousands of ravens in sage grouse habitat along with many hundreds of coyotes, dozens of raccoons, and a few bobcats and mountain lions.
He said that out of fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers, he opted to invest less on predator control in regions where studies showed that coyote exterminations had no correlating effect on deer populations.
Gerald Lent, 74, a former chairman of the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners, dismissed Mr. Mayer's findings as "voodoo science."
This isn't the first time Mayer has been asked to leave the NV Department of Wildlife job. The previous governor fired him in 2010, according to Schweber:
Mr. Mayer previously led the Nevada Department of Wildlife from 2007 until 2010, when Jim Gibbons, then governor, fired him under pressure from ranchers and hunters who said that the agency director had not killed enough coyotes and mountain lions to boost deer populations.
And though Sandoval denies it, it seems to be pressure from the same constituency that cost Mayer his job this time around. Schweber offers a salient quote:
Cecil Fredi, 74, president of a sportsmans' group called Hunters Alert who lives in Las Vegas and lobbied for Mr. Mayer's removal, said that the wildlife director should have focused more on killing the bird's predators than on protecting its ecosystem.
"What did Ken Mayer do? Nothing. Just habitat, habitat, habitat, which is a terrible thing for a person in his position to do," he said. "You get instant results when you poison a raven or shoot a coyote."
Ah, Nevada, Mississippi of the Intermountain West.


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Despite all evidence to the contrary over the past 30 years, post-punk doesn't have to be built out of cold, sharp angles. The Fool, the full-length debut by Los Angeles' Warpaint, coasts instead on a humid, hazy, oozing pulse that's less ice age and more malarial swamp. With a torpid and feverish dreaminess, the all-female quartet stretches skeletal dirges into tribal celebrations of night, death, and revenge: "Warpaint" lopes along with a ceremonial air as dark and grave as Joy Division's circa Closer, and "Majesty" echoes with the sweet, minimal menace of Celebration (minus that band's cartoonishness). But there's also tenderness to songs like "Shadows," a tone-poem of urban unease that mates lonely whispers with a heart-tripping rhythm. The trance is broken briefly by "Baby," a Cat Power-like indie-folk confessional that belongs on a solo album, and "Bees" starts out with a dizzying balance of digitized snare and sludgy low end before succumbing to a clutter of overprocessed drums and bass. Ultimately, though, it's the album's standout track "Undertow" that defines The Fool. "Now I've got you in the undertow," chants singer-guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman in an almost predatory harmony. As if they needed to spell it out.
More from The A.V. Club


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Tour: 2-Day Cruise from LeClaire, IA
Departure Location: LeClaire, Iowa
October 20, 2020 at 8:00am edit
Day 1
Board the TWILIGHT at 7:45 am in Le Claire, Iowa. We will have coffee, sweet rolls,yogurt parfaits, fresh fruit and orange juice waiting for you. Depart Northbound for Dubuque, IA. at 8:00 am. Nothing prepares you for the experience of seeing the valley from the river side. This vast wilderness is hidden smack in the center of the densely populated center of our country. Who knew? This is the river Mark Twain knew, not the one from our school geography books. Arrival time in Dubuque is approximately 6:15pm
Day 2
After breakfast, board our complimentary shuttle that will take you to various Port of Dubuque attractions. Included in your fare are tickets to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium. The Twilight will be departing at 11:30 am, arriving back in Le Claire at approximately 6:30pm.


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I have been experiencing a sharp pain on my right rib for the past couple of months. My right breast was the one diagnosed with cancer, so my concern is truly legitimate. It was x-rayed and my doctor assured me that nothing showed up on the rib. My oncologist read the results of the x-ray and also told me that there was nothing suspicious. To quell my fears, she had me wait while they ran my blood labs so she could determine if my markers were off. There was nothing out of whack with my blood either.
The pain is in a tiny area and I only feel a pang when I move a certain way. Since I have had extensive reconstructive surgery to the right side of my chest, the consensus among my doctors is that it is possibly related to nerve or muscle that has been disturbed by that surgery. I have had multiple surgeries for reconstruction, so it does make sense.
Breast cancer infiltrating bones and especially ribs is a definite possibility. As a survivor, I am constantly reminded that I am not completely cured and that cancer is a continued threat. I hate living this way. I am happy to be through the battle even having lost my breasts, I am angry that I am still at risk for breast cancer metastases even years after the initial diagnosis. The idea of an MRI or bone scan provides new fears since I am now claustrophobic in an MRI machine and worried about the radiation from a bone scan.
Radiologists will tell you that exposure to radiation from bone scans is minimal. I can't stress enough how important this test is if cancer is suspected in the bones. It can prove invaluable in detecting cancer that has spread to the bones. From my experience of crossing the border a couple of days after a bone scan however, I know that it is detectable by radioactive testing. I was sitting in my car when the alarms went off as I drove through a scanner while crossing the border from Canada, so while everyone insists that the radiation is negligible; I know it is enough to be detectable for a few days.
While I recommend scanning for concerns like bone metastasis, I want to balance the risk of radiation with the necessity of testing. As a nine year survivor, I take my own advice to stay vigilant about risks of returning cancer. The pain comes just often enough to remind me that I can't let it go. I am struggling between looking at it with common sense and outright panic. Anyone that knows me knows that I do not panic, but inwardly, panic for a survivor is a constant struggle. To address my concerns my plan is to meet with the reconstructive surgeon to discuss the residual pain from surgery and then if that doesn't ease my fear, I will get a bone scan.
I am thankful that there are tests that can be done to address my fears; I just wish they didn't give me other things to be concerned about.
Important: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not Everyday Health.


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John Cochrane of the University of Chicago and Stanford said it succinctly:
Once upon a time, the minimum wage, like free trade, was a basic test of whether you were awake in the first week of econ 1. We put a horizontal line in a supply and demand graph. Minimum wages increase unemployment of poor people.
Yes, that fact was once considered so obvious that, if I recall correctly, both the Washington Post and the New York Times editorialized against the minimum wage. Any minimum wage.
Harvard's Greg Mankiw asks a salient question:
There is one question I would like to see some reporter ask Alan Krueger, the president's chief economist: How did they decide that $9 per hour is the right level? Why not $10 or $12 or $15 or $20? Presumably, the president's economic team must believe that the adverse employment effects become sufficiently large at some point that further increases are undesirable. But what calculations led them to decide that $9 strikes the right balance?
Quite a few years ago, Scott put it more colorfully: If you really think you can legislate wealth, why are you so cheap? Why don't you make the minimum wage $100 an hour?
Unless the law of supply and demand has been repealed, increasing the price of anything will reduce the demand for it. That is one of the rationales for the tax on cigarettes. That was why, in the bad old days, countries would impose tariffs on foreign goods. The minimum wage is a tariff on low-skilled workers. It inevitably will reduce employment, unless it is pegged at a level that is less than low-skilled workers are already receiving, in which case it will be more or less harmless. I believe that is, in general, what has happened in recent years: the federal minimum wage has trailed actual earnings upward, so that it hasn't done a great deal of harm.
Still, there are some people who simply can't create enough value to justify a $9 dollar an hour wage. Some of them could earn $8 an hour, or $7.50, and would be eager to work for those amounts. But the Democrats want to consign those people to forced unemployment by making it illegal for them to work. They should be ashamed of themselves.
What is going on here is that the Left is out of ammo. Their policies have been tried, and once again have failed. Liberals, the smarter ones anyway, know that their policies don't work, but they don't care: they desperately cling to power, at any cost. They have nothing left to offer but demagoguery, which means that the next four years are going to be ugly.


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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey broke the December opening weekend record, but failed to reach the $100 million mark.
The Lord of the Rings prequel grossed an estimated $84.7 million, Box Office Mojo reports. No other new releases opened against the film, which left Rise of the Guardians to stay perched at the No. 2 spot with $7.4 million. Lincoln rose to the third spot with $7.2 million.
At fourth place, Skyfall grabbed $7 million. Life of Pi completed the top 5 with $5.4 million.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 claimed the No. 6 spot with $5.1 million. In seventh place, Wreck-It Ralph drew $3.2 million.
Rounding out the top 10: Playing for Keeps (No. 8, $3.2 million), Red Dawn (No. 9, $2.3 million) and Silver Linings Playbook (No. 10, $2.0 million).


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Jonathan Ive is not only Apple's most senior designer, he's held the title for 15 years. He's the man behind the look of a lot of the company's most iconic — and successful — gizmos, and has worked on the likes of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, as well as the iMac and Air.
Steve Jobs even referred to the 45-year-old designer as his "spiritual partner" at Apple in his biography by Walter Isaacson, and Ive's native Britain bestowed knighthood upon him. Read: he's probably got a few lessons to share.
Ive recently spoke to the U.K.'s Evening Standard. The questions were simple and the tone casual, but there are some real gems in there for someone with a mind for design, or anyone who thinks about the work that goes into crafting technology besides.
Hop on in for five design revelations from Jonathan Ive.
Before I dive in, with respect to the work done by Evening Standard's Mark Prigg, you can read the full interview with Jonathan Ive for yourself here.
1. Don't Think Different, Think Simple
Apparently Apple has slyly led the world astray with the company's famous "Think Different" ads. That's not what it's about in the least, according to Ive, who said that "most of our competitors are interesting in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals." Click here for the appropriate sound of a record scratching.
So, what is it all about? "A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that's what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better," Ive said. Later in the interview he really drove it home: "Our goal is simple objects, objects that you can't imagine any other way. Simplicity is not the absence of clutter. Get it right, and you become closer and more focused on the object."
Consider the iPod Shuffle: it doesn't even have a screen, and all it is (in its fourth generation, anyway) is a flash drive with a click wheel attached. An MP3 player doesn't get much functionally simpler than that.
2. Always Ask Questions
We all hear it growing up. There's no such thing as a dumb question. Ive takes it a step further, in fact, saying that you should be asking questions while being "interested in being wrong." That's because, if you are truly innovating (not just creating something different, mind you), you're working on a problem for which there is no solution yet.
How, then, do you solve the previously unsolved?
A "wonderful fascination with the what if questions" and "absolute focus and a keen insight" all help, but what it really boils down to, according to the interview with Ive, is this:
"What is more difficult is when you are intrigued by an opportunity. That, I think, really exercises the skills of a designer. It's not a problem you're aware of, nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions, what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device, rather than tactically responding to an individual problem. That's the real challenge, and that's what is exciting."
3. There Is No "I" In Team, Not Even An iTeam
One thing Ive is clear to emphasize is that the design work at Apple is not just Ive: "The way we work at Apple is that the complexity of these products really makes it critical to work collaboratively, with different areas of expertise… We're located together, we share the same goal, have exactly the same preoccupation with making great products."
The design teams at Apple, according to Ive, are small and diverse, which means the way a product looks and operates comes together organically. "I work with silicon designers, electronic and mechanical engineers," Ive said, "and I think you would struggle to determine who does what when we get together."
So, a designer isn't an island scribbling designs down onto a pad that an engineer then has to try and realize as a product. This marriage of designers to engineers and more is probably why we have the likes of the click wheel and MagSafe charger. It's a hollistic approach, and one that offers "collective confidence when you are facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge," according to Ive.
That said, the designer still has clear responsibilities, as you'll see next.
4. Trust Your Instincts (Or: Know Who Not To Listen To)
As you might expect from a high profile designer such as Ive, who is responsible for a wealth of definitive products, he's got quite a bit of trust in his own instincts. This is more a guiding design doctrine, however, and less ego: "It's unfair to ask people who don't have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design."
In other words, if you asked a bunch of people in a room back in 2007, people used to using dial-pad feature phones, if they wanted to have to tap their phone screen to do everything, or press a big glass screen against their face while making a call, the room may have generated a lot of negative interest. If you handed those people fully realized iPhones, instead… Well, let's just say that turned out pretty well for Apple, didn't it?
"We don't do focus groups," Ive said, adding, "that is the job of the designer."
5. It Never Really Gets Easier
Apple has had a pretty amazing run these last five years, which is when the first generation iPhone launched in June of 2007. Since then, the company has knocked it out of the park with new iPods and iPads — which, along with the iPhone, make up 76% percent of Apple's overall revenue right now, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. With one victory after the next, one would imagine that Ive and other design teams at Apple are rolling in a well-worn groove.
Not so, according to Ive: "For as long as we've been doing this, I am still surprised how difficult it is to do this, but you know exactly when you're there — it can be the smallest shift, and suddenly transforms the object, without any contrivance."
Ive's team and design methodology allow him to keep cranking out hits. It's also why, I imagine, the iPhone 4S didn't depart too much from the iPhone 4, or the new iPad didn't look too radically different from the iPad 2. Because it's not about being different. It's about boiling down an object until "you forget you are using an iPad," according to Ive.
Evening Standard, via CNET


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Gabby Douglas: SAG Awards 2013
Gabby Douglas is perfect in purple as she arrives for the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards held at the Shrine Exposition Center on Sunday evening (January 27) in Los Angeles.
The 17-year-old Olympian was People magazine's guest at the annual award show: "Thank you @peoplemag for an incredible night at the SAG Awards!" she wrote on Twitter.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Gabby Douglas
She even got to sit by actress Jenna Elfman!
"At #SAGAwards. SO happy to seated at table w/ US Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas! Love her. LOVE HER," Jenna wrote.
FYI: Gabby is wearing a David Meister Signature dress with Benjamin Adams London heels and a Swarovski clutch.
Posted to: 2013 SAG Awards, Gabrielle Douglas


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Senate group focuses on border security
A bipartisan group of senators working to craft immigration legislation is focusing on how to define when the border is secure, one of several contentious issues that could cause the whole deal to collapse, a key Senate negotiator said Thursday.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., pointed to "serious challenges ahead" as the lawmakers delve into the nitty gritty of border security, how to define a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and other issues such as a guest worker program - something business wants and organized labor has concerns about.
"Make no mistake about it, these are difficult and thorny issues, and all three of us have seen any one of these issues bring previous immigration bills down," Schumer said at a news conference with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Schumer, Durbin and the other six senators who proposed an immigration bill blueprint this week want assurances on border security before a path to citizenship can begin. President Barack Obama does not endorse such a linkage in his own immigration proposal, and the White House argues that the border is more secure now than it ever has been. But Republicans in the Senate group, including John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, say they can't support an immigration bill that doesn't make a pathway to citizenship conditional on a secure border.
But just how to define a secure border remains to be determined, and the issue is front and center as the Senate group meets to draft legislative language.
Schumer and Durbin said they envision specific metrics that would need to be met. They didn't provide examples, but such measures could include crime statistics, arrests at the border, and the number of border agents deployed along the border.
"If we made the path to citizenship contingent on a safe and secure border, and just used that phrase, then it's in the eye of the beholder. It will always be subjective," Durbin said. "The idea behind a metric is to have something measurable, measurable, and we believe we can achieve that."
Rubio has said that "operational security" of the 2,000-mile border should be achieved before illegal immigrants can begin to achieve citizenship. He's defined that as law enforcement having a very high probability of being able to prevent somebody from illegally crossing the border or apprehending them if they do. A Government Accountability Office report in 2011 said that of the nine southwestern border sectors, only the Yuma, Ariz., sector had reported full operational security.
Rubio also wants a better system of tracking people here on visas and whether they've overstayed their visas.
McCain said Thursday that "we have to have control to the level we have on the Yuma sector today, and we can achieve it and it's doable, so we'll do it."
"We know what control of the border is. We'll know it when we see it," McCain said.
The Senate proposal envisions setting up a commission of border state lawmakers and citizens to make a recommendation about when border security metrics have been met, but Schumer said the Homeland Security secretary would have final say.
A year after Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal border crossers plunged to the lowest levels in nearly 40 years agents have seen a slight increase in arrests, according to Border Patrol arrest data obtained by The Associated Press. In the budget year that ended in September, Border Patrol agents arrested 356,873 would-be border crossers along the Mexican border. In fiscal year 2011, agents along the Mexican border made 327,577 arrests.


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How can I see my rank?
To know the rank you are currently in, mouse over the widget on the top rightmost corner and click on 'Click to view My Rank.'
Once you go into the Rankings page, you can see your current rank against other EnglishCentral learners worldwide. You can compare your rank using the available filters – by Time period, and Learner Group. If filtered by Time period, you can view your All Time rank, as well as your ranks for This Month and This Week. The other filter is by Learner Group: you can view your worldwide rank with the 'All' learner group, or with other learner groups you may belong to: such as Class, Channel, or by native language.


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Krugman Credits Cali's Comeback to Fighting 'Fanatical' Conservatives on Tax Hikes
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was giddy over a triumph of the liberal vision in the supposedly resurgent California economy in Monday's "Lessons From A Comeback." The state has overcome a "fanatical conservative minority" to push through "desperately needed tax increases." But is California really back?
....California has been solidly Democratic since the late 1990s. And ever since the political balance shifted, conservatives have declared the state doomed. Their specifics keep changing, but the moral is always the same: liberal do-gooders are bringing California to its knees.
A dozen years ago, the state was supposedly doomed by all its environmentalists. You see, the eco-freaks were blocking power plants, and the result was crippling blackouts and soaring power prices. "The country's showcase state," gloated The Wall Street Journal, "has come to look like a hapless banana republic."
But a funny thing happened on the road to collapse: it turned out that the main culprit in the electricity crisis was deregulation, which opened the door for ruthless market manipulation. When the market manipulation went away, so did the blackouts.
Undeterred, a few years later conservatives found another line of attack. This time they said that liberal big spending and overpaid public employees were bringing on collapse.
Again, however, reports of the state's demise proved premature. Unemployment in California remains high, but it's coming down -- and there's a projected budget surplus, in part because the implosion of the state's Republican Party finally gave Democrats a big enough political advantage to push through some desperately needed tax increases. Far from presiding over a Greek-style crisis, Gov. Jerry Brown is proclaiming a comeback.
After claiming that "a liberal majority has been effectively hamstrung by a fanatical conservative minority," Krugman concluded:
So is California still the place where the future happens first? Stay tuned.
Conn Carroll of the Washington Examiner splashed some cold water on Krugman's California dreaming, unearthing "9 facts Paul Krugman left out of his California Comeback column," including the fact that California has the nation's highest unemployment rate, the nation's highest poverty rate, the highest taxes, and that past tax revenue projections have been over-optimistic, lending a dubious sheen to the state's projected budget surplus.


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States Flex Pro-Life Muscles
This year's unprecedented onslaught of pro-life bills is continuing, with measures that strip Planned Parenthood of all state funding, force private abortionists to adopt new safety measures, require parental consent, and prevent almost all abortions after 20 weeks.
TOPEKA, Kansas — An unprecedented number of pro-life bills, mostly on the state level, is continuing, and recent executive signatures in places like Kansas and Indiana are giving pro-lifers renewed hope.
Measures that strip Planned Parenthood of all state funding, force private abortionists to adopt new safety measures, require parental consent, and outlaw almost all abortions after 20 weeks were pushed through state legislatures by new pro-life majorities.
"It is my impression a significant number of newly elected legislators are pro-life," said Mary Spaulding Balch, who has visited many state legislatures in her job as director of National Right to Life's department of state legislation.
Taking a dimmer view of the proceedings is Elizabeth Nash, policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research center created by Planned Parenthood.
"This year is unparalleled for the amount of pro-life legislation we have seen," said Nash, who adds that the Guttmacher Institute has long been independent of Planned Parenthood.
"What gets me about this," she said, "is that these restrictions do nothing to prevent unintended pregnancies. If we reduce unintended pregnancies [with birth-control procedures], then we reduce the number of abortions."
"There have been 54 bills restricting abortion rights since January," she said, adding that 34 was a previous high in term of bills coming from all the states in their spring sessions. "Kansas alone has a dozen bills [passed or pending]."
The legislative action comes from fewer than half the states, those with what Nash calls "small c" conservative majorities. She uses this term because some of those legislators who support pro-life measures are Democrats.
Balch says in her more than 20 years of work at the state level on pro-life issues, "Not a year has gone by when we didn't pass one or another piece of legislation."
Nash adds that the pro-life movement has been successful over the past five years in getting its views put into state laws. "They've built up a momentum. And now there are pro-life governors in states where they were pro-choice before [November]."
Nash is forgetting another factor, says Balch. The public has been in favor of restricting abortions all along, and especially of denying public funding for them. "A significant proportion of the population hasn't wanted to see its tax dollars paying for the death of unborn human beings. A supermajority [two-thirds] find it offensive."
Supermajorities are on everyone's minds, because that's what it takes to overrule a governor who won't sign a pro-life bill.
Minnesota sent a fetal-pain bill to Gov. Mark Dayton. Balch says the governor is expected to veto it, leaving the pro-life majorities in the state Senate and House of Representatives to try to get the supermajorities necessary to override the governor. But right now it looks like they will fall a few votes short.
Kansas Shows How
No such obstacle exists in Kansas, where the pro-life movement is showing what it can accomplish when the Senate, House of Representatives and governor are in sync.
Pro-life measures that Sam Brownback, who became governor this year after serving in the U.S. Senate for six years, has already signed into law or is expected to sign include one that denies state-controlled funds (including federal dollars) to organizations that do abortions; one that requires parental consent before minors can get abortions; and a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, except when the mother's life is threatened.
Kansas has also banned so-called telemed abortions, a procedure Planned Parenthood is trying out in Iowa. It is designed to address the additional cost to rural women of driving long distances to an abortion business and taking time off work. The woman gets approval for her abortion from a doctor she consults with by video conference. Once approved, she presses a button in front of her, and two pills are dispensed: one for her to take immediately and one for later.
Another new Kansas law requires all women seeking an abortion to be informed that the operation terminates the life of a unique human being and to be offered an ultrasound test.
Another measure concerns insurance plans in the state exchange to be set up under the new federal health-insurance scheme. Those seeking abortion insurance will have to buy a separate rider to that effect. "This is so I'm not paying for someone's abortion with my premiums," said Balch.
Count to 5
Planned Parenthood is taking particular exception to the defunding provisions, which were pioneered by Indiana but have been emulated by several legislatures. Planned Parenthood says the federal funds being cut off, so-called "Title X" funds passed on to states for family planning, don't pay for abortions anyway.
Balch acknowledges that the Hyde Amendment passed each year by Congress prevents federal funds for all abortions except those threatening the mother's life and in cases of incest or rape. But the Title X funds, by paying for other programs provided by Planned Parenthood, "free up" funds for abortions, argues Balch.
Another argument from Planned Parenthood defenders is that their family-planning programs (i.e., birth-control education and drugs) prevent 800,000 abortions each year.
Balch responds, "We are concerned with those lives that are in being. We know that Planned Parenthood is in the abortion business big-time."
Planned Parenthood has challenged Indiana's defunding law in federal court, but failed to get an injunction preventing the law's implementation until the challenge is heard and ruled on.
It seems only the courts can stop the pro-life juggernaut and, ultimately, that means the Supreme Court. It was the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that threw out the absolute bans on abortion in many states, indirectly instigating the long, incremental legislative campaigns in those states to whittle away at abortions with restrictions. What about a law that challenges Roe v. Wade directly?
Balch said that this is certainly possible, but not timely.
The Supreme Court has overturned its own rulings in the past, she notes, citing the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. the School Board of Topeka, Kansas, in 1954, in which it threw out its own previous endorsement of state segregation laws.
But Balch warns "it would be imprudent" to bring legislation before the Supreme Court challenging Roe at this time. "Pro-lifers need to count to five," she said. Right now, only four of nine Supreme Court justices are reliably pro-life. A state law that provoked a reaffirmation of Roe v. Wade from today's Supreme Court would likely result in a major setback.
Yet there are new bills in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi that would legally define human life as beginning at the moment of conception and ban all abortions. Such laws are likely to be challenged and may make it as far as the high court.
Steve Weatherbe writes from Victoria, British Columbia.
Abortion Economics 101
According to Chapter 8 of Jeffrey Perloff's textbook Microeconomics, the abortion business is nearly "perfectly competitive," meaning it is so competitive that the price of the operation is very close to cost, and profits are minimal. This has happened at least partly because public demand for abortion has decreased. Perloff reports the abortion rate per 1,000 women of child-bearing age has gone down from 29 in 1981 to 21 in 2003. This has forced smaller clinics, especially in rural areas, out of business (causing an overall decline in the number of abortion businesses by 11% between 1996 and 2000).
Meanwhile, larger operations in urban areas have maintained the basic price of an abortion at 1983 levels, while reducing costs. Demand is very "elastic," or price-sensitive.
"To stay in business," said Perloff, "the clinics keep their variable costs as low as possible. A low-paid staff does everything but the actual surgery, from drawing blood to doing lab tests. … A doctor is present only on days when they can schedule a steady stream of patients. Each first-trimester procedure takes only two to three minutes of the doctor's time."
Competition is so fierce, doctors in the business refuse to train others, says Perloff.
Meanwhile, another economist, Marshall Medoff, has reported in his paper "The Response of Abortion Demand to Changes in Abortion Cost" that while practitioners have done their best to keep costs down, the "real price" of abortions (the total cost to women, including transportation and time off of work) has still increased, and this increase between 1982 and 2000 caused 20% of the overall decline in the number of abortions.
Moreover, Medoff's research also indicated any increase in the real cost of abortion will reduce not only the incidence of abortion, but also the incidence of unintended pregnancies by "altering women's sexual/contraceptive practices." Parental-notification laws reduce abortion, reported Medoff.
— Steve Weatherbe
- Keywords:
- June 19-July 2, 2011


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The counseling services offered through this nonprofit were invaluable to our family. Unfortunately, service to Bunnell was discontinued, leaving us in the lurch for services. It's been several years, and we still haven't found a counselor in our price range who can treat our child's PTSD. Most counselors seem to go by a script rather than trying to understand the case in front of them. And most counselors don't work every day with traumatized children. It's been very hard to try to safeguard our son from the political realities behind the severing of the services he needed and try to make him feel safe even when what he needed most, what was actually helping him, vanished overnight. Losing these services has been utterly devastating.
It was a big production in late July with big-name invites including State Attorney R.J. Larizza and Flagler County Sheriff Jim Manfre. The Children's Advocacy Center's open house on July 23 was celebrating the opening of a new rape-crisis clinic in Bunnell.
The fanfare was intentional. The center had been embarrassed months before by a scandalous failure. In June, following an alleged rape in Flagler Beach, a Flagler Beach detective tried for hours to secure a forensic nurse examiner to conduct the required exam on the victim at a private facility in Bunnell. The center was supposed to have such a nurse on call, ready to respond. It did not. Instead, it gave the detective the run-around for several hours, and finally told the detective that it would not send a nurse. The victim, the center said, could be examined by local hospital staff—an unacceptable arrangement for many victims, whose trauma can be compounded in the glare and bustle of an emergency room.
The detective finally took the victim to St. Johns County, where she was properly examined.
Children Advocacy Center Breakdowns
It wasn't the first case of such a failure on the part of the advocacy center, a $3.9 million non-profit based in Daytona Beach that for almost a decade had provided such services, without a hitch. The center's commitment to provide rape-crisis services to victims collapsed last year when the center's contract for those services went awry. Flagler and Volusia sheriff's deputies and other local police agencies found themselves having at times to transport rape victims as far away as Seminole County to conduct proper exams, jeopardizing the integrity of the prosecution's cases and further traumatizing victims.
The center claimed it was doing its best in a poorly-funded arrangement, and that it wasn't even required by law, as hospitals are, to provide that service, even though it had done so for years, even though Flagler County government for years has annually contributed $50,000 to the center, and even though the center's own mission statement leaves no doubt about its responsibilities: "The Children's Advocacy Center is committed to providing quality forensic, therapeutic and prevention services to all child abuse and sexual assault victims in a gentle and professional manner." The center emphasizes that mission when it makes emotional appeals for money to donors, who respond in kind.
The center has over the past year made a distinction between its responsibilities to children and to adults: it's focused on children, not adults, and therefore should not be expected to provide rape-crisis services to adult victims.
Because of history and available funding, the distinction has not been convincing to law enforcement officials. Larizza and Manfre took a hard line against the center's conduct. Reggie Williams, the relatively new head of the Children's Advocacy Council (he'd been a district chief for the Department of Children and Families previously), took responsibility for the center's publicized failure in the Flagler Beach rape case, saying he had no excuses to offer. And in July, though he wasn't there himself, he publicized the opening of the rape crisis center's larger facilities in Bunnell, inviting the public to visit and pledging that the center would be there to stay.
It turned out to be more smoke and mirrors.
Two Advocacy Center Ultimatums
On Dec. 4, Williams told Larizza, Manfre, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson and Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood that the Children's Advocacy Center was getting out of the business of independently providing forensic examinations at CAC sites such as the Bunnell facility.
"Effective January 1, 2014, forensic examinations will not be performed any longer at CAC sites and law enforcement will be instructed to take all victims to hospital emergency rooms for forensic examinations," Williams wrote the four law enforcement chiefs. CAC would then provide a nurse examiner "should one be available," Williams wrote. (Such nurse examiners are known by their acronym, SANE, which stands for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner.)
And effective June 30, Williams warned, "if a resolution is not reached with hospitals to share the cost of providing SANE nurse examiner services, this service will be terminated by the CAC and hospitals will be solely responsible for providing these services as outlined in Florida statute."
Larizza was livid, and like others who'd been invited—and had responded—to the open house in July, he felt manipulated. He'd believed the CAC's pledge in July that it was there to stay.
"That's what we were told," Larizza said in an interview Thursday. "And the next thing I know, we get this letter that says we can't do it anymore. It makes you pause and wonder what's really going on."
Larizza's answer—co-signed by Manfre, Johnson and Chitwood—was a furious and unequivocal rejection of Williams's ultimatum.
"I was extremely disturbed to read your letter of December 4, 2013," Larizza wrote on Dec. 17. "Most particularly in view of the wholly inadequate advance notice of such a significant decision, and the substantial negative impacts it will have on sexual assault victims –as well as the efforts of law enforcement to bring perpetrators to justice. Your letter has been reviewed by the undersigned law enforcement officials from Volusia and Flagler counties. We are all in unanimous agreement that the proposed changes as outlined in your correspondence are totally unacceptable."
"Lack of Professional Courtesy"
Larizza was not happy with the fact that Williams gave his office less than 30 days' notice that all CAC sites would be closed to forensic exams. "This decision appears to have been made unilaterally, without any input or request for assistance from the State Attorney's Office or the various law enforcement agencies that depend upon your agency to meet the critical needs of adult and child victims of sexual assault and violence," Larizza wrote. "Moreover, you failed to indicate in your letter whether you had contacted any hospitals In Volusia and Flagler counties to ensure that the proposed transition from your examination sites to alternative sites occurs with the least amount of disruption or emotional trauma to our victims." (Williams had been in contact with some of the hospitals, but no conclusive arrangement had been reached.)
Williams's manner, Larizza wrote, "demonstrates poor planning and a total lack of professional courtesy." The contradictions between the CAC's pledges on one hand and its ultimatum on the other were especially galling to Larizza: "Your extremely short notice flies in the face of a year of ongoing meetings between your agency, the State Attorney's Office, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, the Domestic Abuse Council and various medical professionals to address and resolve any and all issues regarding the mandated services the CAC had agreed to provide to adult and child sexual assault victims," he wrote. "It should be noted that during these ongoing meetings, neither you nor anyone from your staff ever mentioned that you would shut down your examination sites due to funding or any other issues. To the contrary, you consistently represented that additional medical professionals were being trained to ensure that when requested, a SANE nurse would be available to respond and perform the necessary medical examination at CAC examination facilities."
That, in fact, was precisely one of the emphases of the open house in July, when SANE nurses were introduced to the public, among them Terri Augspurger, contracted by CAC to coordinate the SANE nurse examiners work from the forensic perspective. In an interview on Thursday, Augspurger said the CAC's position is not unique. "This is not an isolated problem to Volusia and Flagler. People are struggling all over the state," she said.
Cost Overruns
Augspurger said that after the open house in July, it became apparent that costs were outrunning revenue, and that the facilities CAC was providing were not always equipped to handle biohazard issues, nor were they funded well enough to account for all the needs—which makes using hospitals more logical.
The costs of running the system, according to Williams, are not keeping up with revenue. But the costs are relatively minimal, compared to the CAC's $4 million budget—and most of those costs are offset by a $500-per-exam reimbursement from the state. Williams says that CAC would be running a $38,000 deficit if it were to maintain the service through June 30, and that the average of seven exams per month, which generate $3,500, are not enough to cover costs. "A minimum of eight exams per month is needed to cover on-call costs," he states.
On-call nurses are paid just $2 an hour. That works out to $17,500 to cover all on-call costs for an entire year—a cost CAC would easily be able to cover on its own. Out of the $500 per exam, $300 goes to the nurse conducting the exam. The rest goes to CAC, netting $16,800. Augspurger is paid $25 an hour, for 15 top 20 hours of work a week, for her coordination services. The center must also pay for supplies. Based only on what the state reimburses, CAC unquestionably faces a shortfall. But the shortfall is modest—and compared to CAC's overall operations, it is insignificant.
But even Augspurger conceded that 24-hour coverage with five SANE nurses is not possible, and there isn't enough money to provide more. None of the five is in Flagler County (three are in St. Johns, including Augspurger.)
That lack of coverage was particularly alarming to Larizza and the police chiefs, who seized on Williams's words that SANE nurses would be provided only if available.
"This is an unacceptable arrangement," Larizza wrote. "Given your vague and equivocal representation that SANE nurse examiners might (or, one can assume, might not) be provided, how then can law enforcement be expected to carry out its sexual assault investigations when it is in doubt as to whether your staff will respond when requested to perform a medical examination. It is my understanding that the CAC was the recipient of grant funds for the provision of SANE nurses and examinations as part of your services to Volusia and Flagler Counties. Accordingly, you are obligated and expected to comply with the grant or other funding requirements and provide the services as previously agreed upon and mandated, at the very least until expiration of the particular funding agreement."
Larizza, reiterating the State Attorney's Offfice's expectations that CAC will provide forensic services in accordance with previous pledges and expectations, concluded: "As you know, the collection of evidence of sexual assault through medical examination is extremely time-sensitive and very traumatic for the victim who s undergoing the exam process. Your ambiguous representation regarding the provision of SANE nurse examiners puts the investigation and prosecution of sexual offenders at risk and will inevitably further traumatize sexual assault victims going through the process."
"A Clerical Error Was Made"
Larizza's letter led to a meeting of the CAC board of directors, and a response—not from Williams, but from Joanne Pinkston-McDuffie, who chairs the board, and who gave a bizarre explanation for Williams's letter to Larizza: The letter, she claimed was supposed to be sent to hospital administrators and merely copied to Larizza. "Unfortunately, a clerical error was made," Pinkston-McDuffie claimed, "giving you the impression that we wanted you to address this matter when the intent was to inform you of our continuing efforts to get cooperation from the three primary hospital administrators."
Pinkston-McDuffie was, of course, being disingenuous: Williams's letter was clearly addressed to Larizza and copied to law enforcement chiefs, with no mention of hospital administrators even in the cc line. And if it had been intended for hospital administrators, Larizza and the chiefs would have been equally, if not more, infuriated for being faced with what still amounted to an ultimatum, without being directly included in the discussion, or given prior warning. As with the fallout from the CAC's failure last June, however, the CAC was looking for cover.
The claim of a clerical error was reminiscent of another error during the CAC's catastrophic response to the Flagler Beach detective's call for a SANE nurse, when the person on CAC's rape-crisis hotline seemed ignorant of the meaning of "sexual assault," asking the detective if it was the same as a rape.
And the substance of Pinkston-McDuffie's letter was not different from Williams's: it merely extended the ultimatum by 60 days. It did not address Larizza's concerns about a lack of proper communications, or about the chasm between the CAC's previous pledges and its latest stance. Rather, the letter focused on the CAC's desire to shift the responsibility for forensic exams to hospitals, and Williams's attempts since July—at the very time when CAC was boasting of its new center in Bunnell—to execute that shift. Pinkston-McDuffie's timeline, therefore, implicitly concedes that July's open house was for show: CAC was actively working to pull out of the business even then, except when children are concerned.
"The primary reason for moving adult forensic examination services to the hospital is that this procedure is a medical procedure and the CAC is not equipped to handle acute medical incidents," Pinkston-McDuffie wrote Larizza in one of the letter's straw men: the police chiefs have never claimed that CAC's service was to supplant immediate attention in an ER in cases of acute medical needs, just as SANE nurses are trained to detect such needs even when they may not be obvious—as, for example, when a victim has been strangled, but the consequences of the strangling may not immediately be apparent except to a trained examiner. In such cases, hospital care takes precedence over a forensic exam. But one does not exclude the other, nor negate the need for a discreet facility where forensic exams can be provided.
Hospitals generally do not provide such facilities.
Playing Word Games
Pinkston-McDuffie also defended Williams's pledge to provide a SANE nurse "if one is available," saying that CAC has lost three such nurses since September 2013. "We are not pleased with this outcome," the chairman wrote. "Any assistance you can provide to encourage other SANEs to contract with our agency is appreciated." Yet Williams himself had spoken in summer of CAC providing training for SANE certification, so that the pool of such nurses would grow, and would eventually include nurses who live in Flagler. As it turns out, CAC held just one such training session in Daytona Beach, and no other.
Finally, Pinkston-McDuffie emphasized that CAC's role is "on recovery, not evidence collection," relying—with remarkable insensitivity to the purpose of forensic examinations—on the wording of the contract with CAC to beg off the broader responsibility of providing SANE nurses. But that is a misreading of SANE nurses' work, which Augspurger, the SANE nurse coordinator, describes as a painstaking process that can take up to five hours, that includes a head-to-toe exam, and intensive evidence collection, down to documented evidence through pictures. The presence of an advocate focuses on recovery. But the SANE nurse's work is precise, clinical and evidence-based.
Pinkston-McDuffie ended her response with a proposal to establish a task force to look into the same issues Williams raised in his letter. The ultimatum was extended 60 days.
Such a task force was established, and meetings carried out, Larizza said Thursday. "I think we got it figured out as far as what we're going to do, but until I confirm it with the sheriffs I can't give you specifics," he said. "All the options are open. The ultimate concern is one, the victims that come into these examinations are treated with dignity and respect and they don't have to be transported hours away from the jurisdiction to get an examination, so we want to make sure that where these exams take place, that it's an environment that's private and that's conducive to us to conduct the examination and investigation." Secondly, the examinations must be conducted with the care and precision that helps lead to successful prosecutions, Larizza said.
"The hospitals have been extremely helpful and cooperative, they understand the significance and the importance of this," Larizza said. But it's not yet clear where and how the SANE examinations will be provided, and with what certainty.
"I'm optimistic we're going to make it work," Larizza said. "We're not going to have adult or children victims of sexual assaults not getting the exams or the interviews because there's an issue about money, because this is too important not to."
Review from Guidestar
As a local business owner, I have contributed to Children's Advocacy when my business was able. I have referred people to the Volusia Flagler County branch for direction to their services and even to obtained information on related services for adults that others would provide. I have found them to be such a necessity in our community. This award winning branch has achieved this for too many reasons to list.
I am the social services director for Flagler County and, in this role, I have been the contract manager for the funds that this agency receives from the county for many years. I have always found this agency to have some of the most dedicated and caring staff of any agency I deal with. They are responsive to the needs of their clients and efficient in the delivery of their services. I have had the opportunity of being able to get feed back from a couple of their clients and it is ALL positive!
As a professional I find this agency to be a pleasure to deal with from their receptionist to their clinical workers right up to their director. A well-run organization!
CAC serves the needs the most vulnerable, innocent members of our communities in a professional, caring, skilled manner. Every member of the staff is fully committed to the therapeutic and preventive treatment of vicitims of unimaginable abuse and/or neglect.
The staff works long hours in an attempt to meet the needs of their clients in spite of huge budget cuts. I am always amazed at the dedication and concern of everyone involved with CAC.
The Children's Advocacy Center is a well-organized, efficient non-profit with a clear-cut mission and objectives. I have never seen a more dedicated staff than at the CAC, and each one of them fully support their mission. There is such a need for their services in the Daytona Beach area, and they do everything they can to fill in where they are needed, and offer services where they see a gap. I have been volunteering for over a year now and never fail to be impressed with this organization and group of people.
I went to the Children's Advocacy Center of Volusia and Flagler counties when I was 17, to deal with the abuse that my step-father had done to me. In my experience at the Children's Advocacy Center, I received more than the help that I needed. I got acceptance, love and the ability to plan my future without living in fear that it'd be taken away. Everyone in the building is so friendly and helpful. They really do everything they can to help whomever they can. I can truly say that this is the one place in the entire world that I am fully happy going to. I love volunteering there also. I'm going to school for psychology because it is my dream job to work at the Children's Advocacy Center once I get all my degrees.
The CAC is an amazing agency with an incredible staff, dedicated to helping abused and neglected CHILDREN and their families. The stories would break your heart!! Abuse is up and donations are down. But the good news is, we can make a difference!!!! The CAC is always in need of volunteers. It is a cause very near and dear to my heart. I got involved many years ago as a volunteer for the CAC Fashion Show. Now I'm hooked for life and serving as an executive board member. There is no greater cause than keeping our children safe and healthy!!! As the mother of two I can't imagine the pain and suffering so many children are forced to endure in our community on a daily basis. If you have time, talent or treasure to give - please consider helping out an agency that is vital to healing and preventing child abuse!!!! God Bless and thank you for taking the time to read this review....


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02 February, 2011 | (01 hr)
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The U.S. economy is recovering from the great recession, which was largely a result of the burst of the housing bubble. The size of this bubble though, varied significantly across regions. Other factors such as industry mix and fiscal conditions have also contributed to an especially large disparity of economic conditions across regions. At such a time, when household demand and labor market conditions vary so dramatically across regions, looking beyond the national data is particularly important. The Conference Board economists will use proprietary data as well as other sources to present an economic outlook for the U.S. and its various regions. The webcast will focus in particular on labor market conditions.
This webcast will address:
- How are the regional economies being affected by the housing crisis?
- What are the consumers telling us about current economic conditions and expectations in their region?
- Which states have the best and worst fiscal conditions?
- How do employment, unemployment, compensation and retirement trends vary across regions?
- What are the regional economic indicators telling us about the outlook for 2011?
- What are some of the long-term trends in the regions are, and how they will impact the economy beyond 2011?
This webcast will be of interest to Economists, CFO's, Human Resources executives, and all executives in charge of organizational development and strategic planning.
Kenneth Goldstein
Ken Goldstein has been an economist at The Conference Board since 1971. His principal responsibilities include analyzing current trends in labor market activity and forecasting near-term economic development. He also conducts research and analysis for the Business Cycle Indicators Program.<...Full Bio
Gad Levanon, PhD
Gad Levanon is Vice President, Labor Markets for The Conference Board, where he oversees the labor market, US forecasting, and Help Wanted OnLine© programs. His research focuses on trends in US and global labor markets, the US economy, and forecasting using economic ind...Full Bio


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Contact information listed below is specific to Utah health plans.
All Savers Health Plan
All Savers Plan Provider Call Center: 800-291-2634
Pharmacy Services: 855-816-6618
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Please submit paper claims to:
All Savers
P.O. Box 31375
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Fax: 801-478-7582
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Please submit formal appeals to:
Appeals Review
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Salt Lake City, UT, 84131-0371
Fax: 317-715-7648
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Phone Number: 877-842-3210
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What You Can Do When Calling this Number:
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Phone Number: 866-889-8054
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- For information to support member behavioral health services including depression, alcohol and substance abuse disorders, visit ProviderExpress.com
- 866.342.6892 - 24/7 mental health and substance use support line
UnitedHealthcare Dental - UHCdental.com
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Cool Firehouse Fence
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Becky |
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The title says it all. Check out this awesome custom iron fence in Boston's Dudley Square neighborhood, outside the firehouse. Details on the firemen, such as their helmets, are historically accurate .While it doesn't look too hard to breach this thing, it sure if fun to look at!


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The Legacy Box SetJoel Meyerowitz
Availability: In stock
In this stunning collection of images, master photographer Joel Meyerowitz invites us to discover the hidden pockets of wilderness that still exist within the urban environs of New York City. Meyerowitz honed in on the 8,700 acres within the five boroughs of New York City that still exist in their pristine state, as well as areas within various parks that have reverted to wilderness. In creating work, Meyerowitz has drawn on childhood memories of a New York "green-space—open and wild, alive with rabbits, migratory birds, snakes, frogs,and the occasional skunk—[that] gave me my first sense of natural world, its temperament and its seasons, its unpredictability, and its mystery."
Presented in a custom-designed clamshell box, the limited-edition set contains a copy of Legacy, with a specially designed and produced bellyband; The Hallett, an exclusive limited-edition book exploring the Hallett Nature Sanctuary in Central Park, found only in this set with images not featured in Legacy and printed using HP Indigo digital press; and an archival pigment-ink print made personally by the artist.
Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks
12 x 10 1/2 in.
300 pages plus a four-page gatefold
300 four-color images
Hardcover with bellyband
The Hallett
10 x 8 in.
38 pages
34 four-color images
Hardcover with tip on image
Central Park, Hallett Nature Sanctuary, Autumn 2006
Archival pigment ink paper
Image size: 9 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.
Paper size: 10 x 12 in.
Joel Meyerowitz (born in New York, 1938) is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 international exhibitions. He is a two-time Guggenheim fellow, a recipient of both NEA and NEH awards, as well as a recipient of the Deutscher Fotobuchpreis. He has published over fifteen books, including Cape Light (1978) and Aftermath: The World Trade Center Archive (2006). He lives in New York and is represented by Edwynn Houk Gallery.


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Expert blogging on .net & technologies
Computational Knowledge Engine
Today I was googling to find comparison data between "India" and "USA". I wanted to know all the important data including demographics on a single page and in a comparison chart.
While trying to find some comparison result I browsed wikipedia and google for term "India vs USA". Then I came to know about a site "www.wolframalpha.com" which is in initial phase of their engine.
WolframAlpha is termed as "computational knowledge engine" by their developer and promoter. They have a very good knowledge base data which includes topics like:
So if you want to know about any particular word related to above topics, you can just type the word and hit enter button and you will see the all the necessary data in a tabular format.
Tags: computational knowledge engine, wolframaplha, knowledge engine, computational engine, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Materials, Engineering, Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Computational Sciences, Units and Measures, Dates and Times, Weather, Places and Geography, People and History, Words and Linguistics, Sports and Games, Money and Finance, Socioeconomic Data, Health and Medicine, Food and Nutrition, Education, Organizations, Transportation, Technological World, Web and Computer Systems
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"He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life." ...James Joyce
travel adventure explore photography climbing hiking
Natalie. Writer. Photographer. Etc.
A fine WordPress.com site
southern fried queen
A gleeful account of 2 native Texans, our dogs, and fixing up a little house in Austin.
let's make things
A Dialogue
Creepy Spooky Lovely Nice
Matt Hall
This is where I have to write something creative to capture your imagination. And I will. One day.
World through the eyes of a Nomad
Be amazing.
A blog full of humorous and poignant observations.
Creating new world with light.
A Library of Literary Interestingness
The whimsical search of authorial satisfaction


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Acclaimed filmmaker Cameron Crowe's latest film, We Bought A Zoo, is based on the inspiring true story of Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), an adventure-seeking journalist and single dad, who is looking to give his family a much-needed fresh start and ends up moving to a home situated in the middle of a zoo. While he and his two children attempt to bring the zoo back to its once glorious state, the Mee family, the eccentric team of zoo employees – including head zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) – and dozens of exotic animals, bond in ways they never could have imagined.
During this exclusive phone interview, the undeniably charming and easy to talk to filmmaker explained why he identified with this particular story, what made Matt Damon his perfect leading man, building a zoo from scratch and working with 70 exotic animals, why Jónsi (of the band Sigur Rós) was the right musician to do the score, finding the poetic moments of a story, and the importance of taking great risks, in your own life. He also talked about how strange it is to hear his dialogue often quoted, his upcoming documentary The Union (due out in January 2012), showcasing the musical collaboration between Elton John and Leon Russell, and that his next film will be an as-yet-untitled comedy, that he hopes to start shooting in the Spring. Check out what he had to say after the jump.
How did you first become aware of this story and the book that Benjamin Mee wrote, and what was it that you most identified with, that made you want to bring it to the big screen?
CAMERON CROWE: I guess I liked that Benjamin Mee was a journalist, and so he had a great detailed sense about his own story and the way he captured it. But, I think it was mostly his impossible dream, which he's still living. When I last talked to him, he said he's four years into a brief rainy system that he's hoping will pass, so people will start showing up to the zoo. And, he doesn't give up. He came to the set and he was that guy. It was like he walked right out of his own documentary. I loved that it was the human adventure, in great detail, and I felt like I could collaborate with that story.
Once you signed on to direct it, did you make a lot of changes to the script?
CROWE: Yeah. There was a story that really stuck with me, which was that there was a very famous actress that was after the rights of We Bought a Zoo. I guess she was thinking of the story to be more of Katherine's story, before she died. She met with Benjamin Mee, and the actress pitched the story and everything. Benjamin's reaction later, privately, was, "She's not beautiful enough to be my Katherine," meaning on the inside. I heard that and I just thought, "Wow, this guy's love is so strong and so true. Our movie should be a portrait of that love, that doesn't get revealed, fully, until the last two words of the movie, where we realize the entire movie has been an adventure launched by her." That was a big reason for making the movie, and that was a change I definitely made from the first draft. It was my interpretation, I guess.
In a role that relies on the character being likable, what was it about Matt Damon that made him the perfect actor for this?
CROWE: Matt's a guy that can do drama. He's that rare guy that makes it look easy. He's like James Stewart, or one of those guys, where you don't realize how valuable they truly are, until years later when they go, "Get me another James Stewart," and there's nobody, for a generation. That's because it's so hard to be a guy who's romantic and funny and soulful, and will cry and just say, "I'm your partner, as an actor, and let's do all this stuff. And, by the way, I'll be a great father to these kids in your movie, and I'll do a scene with a tiger." I think there's a list of one.
You had the kids, you had the animals, and you had to construct a zoo. What were the biggest challenges in making this? Was anything more difficult than the other, or was it all just a big challenge, in getting it all together?
CROWE: It was all a big challenge 'cause I was in denial over it, and still am in denial. I said, "Did we really work with exotic animals? Did that really happen? Wow! How did that happen?" I think it happened just out of pure belief that we could do it. We were able to do it with a lot of help and the cast being so super-pro. I think it always was a movie about characters, to me – human characters and animal characters that weren't talking animals, but just noble, exotic reminders of your responsibility and love. So, if I kept my head down and focused on the relationships, I knew I wouldn't get overwhelmed with where the trainer is going to bring the lion in the enclosures. But, we built a zoo and had 70 animals and a slew of trainers, and made a personal movie out of it.
In taking on a story like this, how fine of a line is it, in making sure it's not too melodramatic or sappy, but has the right emotional level with a good balance of laughs and tears?
CROWE: I just go by personal instinct. I did a book on Billy Wilder, who once said that there's good sentimentality and bad sentimentality. I asked him, "What's bad sentimentality?," and he said, "You know when you see it!" So, I just think to myself, "Put your inner audience hat on and when you feel that it's true and authentic, then you have it." That's what I do. I think it's okay to be open-hearted. It's when you do it with no back-up, or no memory or knowledge that darkness is necessary for the brightness, that it [feels untrue].
What was it about Jónsi , as a musician, that made you choose him to do the score for the film?
CROWE: It was his Go album. I love Sigur Rós, but the Go album, to me, was so intoxicating and positive while still being complex. It's like, can you bring joy and positivity with equal measures of truth and depth? And, that's his music. So, we started playing it on the set, and Matt [Damon] just responded to it immediately. Everybody did. It just felt like, "Man, if he could score this movie, that would be the musical voice that I've been searching for." And, it turned out that he was available. So, he flew from Iceland and walked in with that theme that begins the movie, and we were off and running.
Do you know which project you'll be doing next? Do you already have something in mind?
CROWE: I do. We're going to hopefully start it in the Spring, and it's more of a full-on comedy then We Bought a Zoo. I want to keep directing now because my writing phase has been fruitful. I want to keep my team together and keep directing.
Does that film have a title?
CROWE: It's untitled. I'm predictable.
People that you work with say that you really like to find the poetry in things. Do you see that, in your work?
CROWE: I'm honored by the question. I just love when a movie takes a break and gives you a poetic moment, but sometimes it's good when they just happen randomly. If your actors are really comfortable and you let the camera roll, sometimes things happen and you just see something that's visually iconic, or emotionally that way. I just gravitate to that stuff. But, the next movie is a little more plotted, structurally. I was talking with a friend of mine and said, "But, what about the poetry?," and they were like, "Oh, dude, the poetry will come, no matter what. You can't stay away from that." I was like, "Yeah, you might be right." So, I'm actually trying to write that stuff out of the script right now and am letting it come in around the edges.
What were the challenges of directing We Bought a Zoo while also completing Pearl Jam Twenty and The Union, about Elton John and Leon Russell?
CROWE: It was a lot, but work breeds a certain type of energy. If you're doing a bunch of stuff at the same time, it all feeds the other thing. I was lucky that the Pearl Jam movie was a great hobby, when I took a break from We Bought a Zoo. And then, when I wanted to take a break from those two, there was the Elton John documentary. The Elton John documentary, because of Elton John, had its own editorial structure because Elton John is such a showman. I found, after we filmed all this stuff, that basically every day of filming, he would look into the camera, at a certain point, and say, "I'm feeling this, and I'm waiting for this to happen. This is where I am on March 12, 2009." It was like, "Thank you, Mr. Narrator." That's exactly the story we're telling, so it was fun to edit. The biggest part of the Elton John documentary was all of the clearances. But, it was fun to do all that stuff. Actors get to do that a lot 'cause they have three projects, or something, stacked up.
This film really illustrates how a lot of the greatest things ever accomplished really come from incredible risk. Is there a risk that you took, in your own life, that you look back on and are proud of because it changed things for you?
CROWE: Yeah. I think every time I've taken a leap and said, "I love you," in a relationship, that was a risk 'cause I really believe those words. Professionally, I think Vanilla Sky felt like a risk, at the time. I think it was something unexpected, from all of us that were doing the movie, but it seems like, 10 years or so later, that's one of the movies people ask me about the most. That's cool. It's a daily thing, really, to just try to listen to that voice inside that says, "Go for it! Why not?" That's a little bit of the point of We Bought a Zoo. If you keep the, "Why not?" alive, something great will happen. Sometimes things you write are messages to yourself, and that's a message to stay on that track. Even though I think my stuff has a particular voice because you are who you are, it's good to switch it up, professionally and personally. The dare to be great situation is always going to be the one that matters the most.
So many of your films have had very quotable dialogue. Is it strange for you to have people quote your movie lines?
CROWE: It is strange! I was watching [President] Obama speak once and he just said, "Show me the money!" I was like, "Woah, that's bizarre!" That's like somebody's doing a prank video on you, or something. It's a strange feeling, but it's a total honor. The funny thing is, if you try to write something that's memorable, you'll never get it. Sometimes it's the way the actor says the words that make it memorable.